Post Voices

Sherwood Ross, an award-winning reporter for his civil rights coverage, formerly worked for the Chicago Daily NewsUSA 21 June 2015. By Sherwood Ross

President Obama was, of course, right to denounce the massacre in the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston and to call for an end to such violence.

But this begs the question of whether he will stop his own illegal drone strikes in the Middle East that are just as deadly and a hundred times more numerous than the attack in South Carolina.

According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism(BIJ), London, just since Mr. Obama came to power, at least several thousand innocent persons (all are presumed innocent unless proven guilty by trial) in Pakistan alone have been murdered by his agents in the CIA and Pentagon. Among the dead are several hundred children. Here are BIJ's distressing figures for that nation:

"All actions 2004 – January 31 2015

Total Obama strikes: 362

Total US strikes since 2004: 413

Total reported killed: 2,438-3,942

Civilians reported killed: 416-959

Children reported killed: 168-204

Total reported injured: 1,142"

The Bureau’s reports re covert US drone attacks cover both the missions of the CIA and the Pentagon's secretive Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC).

If nothing else, the horror of Charleston should inform the American public of the shock and awe their president is inflicting with grim regularity in the Middle East. His is a campaign that, to our shame and sorrow, is creating immense blowback against America.

Mr. Obama has maintained U.S. forces take great care that only terrorists are killed but an article in The Wall Street Journal by Adam Entous last April 26th reports "he secretly approved a waiver giving the Central Intelligence Agency more flexibility in Pakistan than anywhere else to strike suspected militants…"

Entous continued, "The rules were designed to reduce the risk of civilian casualties. Mr. Obama also required that proposed targets pose an imminent threat to the U.S.—but the waiver exempted the CIA from this standard in Pakistan." Why, you ask?

Mr. Obama, (who happens to be a former CIA employee,) according to RealClearPolitics is "In Thrall to CIA Killing Machine." Writer Toby Harnden wrote of him on April 16, 2013: "The man who ran as a liberal, anti-war candidate has brushed away concerns about the (drone) attacks. During one meeting he responded to a request for an expansion of America’s drone fleet by saying: 'The CIA gets what the CIA wants!'"

In his comments about the church murders, Mr. Obama said, "once again, innocent people were killed in part because someone who wanted to inflict harm had no trouble getting their hands on a gun." (Much less directing America's trillion-dollar-a-year killing machine!)

Mr. Obama said further, "let's be clear…It doesn't happen in other places with this kind of frequency, and it is in our power to do something about it." (Oh, yes it does! It happens far more often in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, among other places, and the man who is responsible for them and who can do something about it is the same man wearing the long face in the White House.)

With reference to this article, the eminent Francis Boyle, professor of international law at the University of Illinois, Champaign, commented: "As the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Junior said a generation ago, the United States government is 'the greatest purveyor of violence in the world.'

"It is a terrible tragedy and a great shame that nothing has changed today under our first African American President and my fellow graduate of the Harvard Law School who knows better. The massive violence that America perpetrates abroad brutalizes the American People at home. President Obama has taught the world that in his opinion 'violence works.' Doctor King is now crying in Heaven."

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(Sherwood Ross, an award-winning reporter for his civil rights coverage, formerly worked for the Chicago Daily News and other major dailies. Currently, he is a public relations consultant residing in Miami, Florida. Reach him at sherwoodross@gmail.com)

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